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This is my field. I trained as an architect and work as an urban designer (somewhere between an architect, landscape architect and planner). This article hits o

This is my field. I trained as an architect and work as an urban designer (somewhere between an architect, landscape architect and planner). This article hits on some good points but misses a lot of others. Some dot points to keep it short: * People (especially those with children) often prefer to live in houses with space which are more private rather than in narrow apartments (required if you want low building heights and for everyone to walk everyhwere) on top of their neighbours. Do you really want to hear 3 screaming babies next door every night. Because that's how it works. * Modern business don't work in low desnity environments like this. You simply need to be as accessible as you can to as wide a market (of workers and other businesses you work with) as possible. Maybe once we are all working on the internet it will shift this way - but it hasn't gone far yet. * Even the 'traditional cities' shown will have outskirts with houses which are a pain to walk to rather than just apartments in a centre. * There is no single 'traditional city'. There are differences even across Europe. England has its widened-road market squares. Italy has its hill towns. Places like Japan usually built out of timber (which doesn't last) rather than stone. Etc. * There are plenty of examples of tower cities with bustling urban environments and low car ownership. Like Hong Kong. Dehumanising? Perhaps. It depends on your definition. * Most 'traditional cities' couldn't be built for anywhere near the same cost as a modern development. Overall though, this is pushing in the right direction, just not quite thought through as thoroughly as it might be. [edit] Perhaps the most successful attempt at building in this vein in the west recently has been Poundbury, England. It was Prince Charles' pet project. It has done some things well (like managing to break the highways codes) but in the end perhaps still isn't as nice as a traditional town or as attractive a location for modern living as other places being built. You can see it in streetview here: https://www.google.com/maps/@50.712904,-2.463939,3a,75y,145.8h,79.11t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sP_ymofrDtmlmk2aW3jaL5w!2e0 https://www.google.com/maps/@50.712904,-2.463939,3a,75y,145....

lliwta 12y ago
> * Most 'traditional cities' couldn't be built for anywhere near the same cost as a modern development. Why is this? E.g. The author points out that narrow streets should be cheaper to build and maintain. I grew up in suburbia, lived in a typical American city, and now live in a traditional city abroad. My best guesses as to why building a traditional city is more expensive are 1) construction might be more expensive because of the constrained space; 2) lots of roads are cobble stone rather than pavement; 3) maybe infrastructure (e.g. fire hydrants etc) Are there other more important reasons? I really can't figure it out.
- twelvechairs 12y ago
  Yes. Its not insurmountable like some of the other points (assuming you throw money at it), but its definitely there. A few examples: * Most of the examples are hand built of stone. Which is beautiful and lasts forever (by contrast most suburban homes have a ~40 year lifecycle) but costs a fortune nowadays because of the scarcity of material, labour and transportation costs. This goes for the streets as well as the buildings. * Complex topography is hated by builders. Much cheaper and easier if its dead flat. Also difficult angles. Much easier if everything is square. This is a big one. * Topography and small streets cause problems for access. Once the street is there, no chance you can get a bulldozer in. Or a cement truck of a large size. You might get a small crane but it will be very difficult. Getting your bathtub delivered or even getting your plumber in and out (when most of his tools and pipes are in the van, which is parked where?). This is a big problem for ongoing maintenance/repairs as well as initial construction (particularly if you aren't building out of stone to last forever). So if you imagine the same places built square, flat and with cheaper materials you might come close to a more typical construction cost. But its not going to be anywhere near as attractive.
  - Perseids 12y ago
    > by contrast most suburban homes have a ~40 year lifecycle Living in Germany this is kind of mind-boggling for me. Does that mean each generation has to practically rebuild the houses of its parents? > Much cheaper and easier if its dead flat. Don't several story buildings pay for themselves as you can sell / rent more flats using basically the same amount of infrastructure?
    - twelvechairs 12y ago
      > Does that mean each generation has to practically rebuild the houses of its parents? Yes. In part its disposable consumerism but also its likely that something built in a period of rapid change (as suburbanism often builds houses on fields) may also be required to change itself after some time. In my area its common to see inter-war single-storey cottages rebuilt anew (knocked down completely with a new structure built from scratch), subdivided into two lots or amalgamated with others to build a block of apartments. > Don't several story buildings pay for themselves I mean dead-flat as in no steps in the ground floor within your building. Not as in 'single storey'.
graeme 12y ago
>* Modern business don't work in low desnity environments like this. You simply need to be as accessible as you can to as wide a market (of workers and other businesses you work with) as possible. Maybe once we are all working on the internet it will shift this way - but it hasn't gone far yet. My impression was that traditional cities are higher density than modern cities. They're less dense than hypertrophic cities like Manhattan, but almost everywhere is. Paris is 9 times denser than Atlanta, for example, according to Wikipedia. Can you cite any statistics showing traditional cities aren't dense? You might be right, but any place I've looked at that's traditional is also rather dense compared to the median city. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta
- twelvechairs 12y ago
  The examples shown aren't cities of the size of Paris. Paris would be described here as more of the 'hypertrophic city', reliant on public transit, where for the author "When your primary focus is on walking, there is very little need to invest in extensive public transit". The whole of Europe is full of small towns like the ones used as examples. There has been a big shift in living in the 20th century away from these places as modern jobs have shifted to larger cities. Your example is right. Perhaps I should have said 'less connected environments' rather than 'low density environments'. Paris is quite dense and connected by public transport. Atlanta less dense, but probably easier to drive around. The amount of people within a 1 hour commute of the centre of either will, however, be hugely higher than the examples shown.
  - graeme 12y ago
    His examples were smaller than Paris, but I think Paris in many sections matches what he was talking about. His emphasis was on small streets. I picked a couple random areas in central paris on google street view and found this: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Paris,+France&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=48.859802,2.360516&spn=0.034502,0.079308&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=42.089199,81.210938&oq=paris&hnear=Paris,+%C3%8Ele-de-France,+France&t=m&z=14&layer=c&cbll=48.858935,2.357198&panoid=KFedUek_xPdwmoxKOlmqLQ&cbp=12,312.34,,0,3.28 https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Paris,+France&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=48.875074,2.338385&spn=0.034492,0.079308&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=42.089199,81.210938&oq=paris&hnear=Paris,+%C3%8Ele-de-France,+France&t=m&z=14&layer=c&cbll=48.875074,2.338385&panoid=JTi6slw3B6yserHz2yLGoQ&cbp=12,291.51,,0,11.39 Paris has transit, and large streets, but it has many, many small streets like that.
pouetpouet 12y ago
You don't necerally need high buildings to create density. You can have density with single family homes, if you have narrow streets and less parking. http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2011/061211.html http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2011/061211.html There is such a thing as sound insulation, not every appartment building is noisy. Not everything need to be super high density. There are thresholds that make a local restaurant, corner store, transit stop etc profitable. Not everybody wants to live like this sure, but many do, and these places are sadly often straight up illegal to build. Besides sprawl is incentivised through subsidized road construction, parking minimums, zoning etc.
- twelvechairs 12y ago
  I agree with all of what you say, particularly with the last paragraph (I strongly believe that road/parking subsidies/legality has stopped a lot of good development and encouraged bad development to the great detriment of cities). Dense single family housing is great too - I wish it was more common. Apartment living can be great for families too, where there is good public space around it - there are many people with a mental block against it though. One of the great difficulties is that people can usually either easily afford a house or will struggle to afford one. The former live in grand houses. The latter in whatever is cheapest. Whilst terrace houses may have good amenity and also be space efficient, they are the choice of neither the rich nor the poor for this reason. The thresholds thing is more difficult. Transit depends on type but more often fails for lack of pre-planning ("oh wait. we have to build a tunnel now. If only we'd reserved some land for this earlier"). Restaurants/corner-stores are great but whats shown in the linked examples is proper centres which terrace houses won't generally support (within 5 mins walk). Its worth also noting that some existing centres can support a store (where the shop owner owns it already and it just ticks over) where it wouldn't be something you'd build commercially nowadays (where developers would want a modern commercial rent, rather than just ticking over, for better or worse).
Joeri 12y ago
As someone who deliberately left behind suburbia and its mandatory car ownership to find a better quality of life in a traditional city i find it saddening to hear you argue against human-friendly urban planning. I find your arguments unconvincing. * Just because apartments are small doesn't mean you hear your neighbors, or live uncomfortably. I've lived in three different apartments the past decade and the only time i had noise issues was with a neighbor who played techno at full volume at 3 am, which would be an issue in any city design, dense or sparse. The notion that hearing three crying babies every night is just how it works is only true in hollywood movies which fictionalize poverty in the inner city. In real world apartment life you have a mixed habitation pattern, and soundproofing. * suburbia is even less dense than any sort of city. It's not the density that's the issue, it's the ability to commute. In a city where commuting can be done on foot or through public transit, like many european cities, it's simply not an issue. I walk 5 minutes and then take the tram to work, reading HN while commuting. * There's no such thing as a traditional city, yet you're arguing against it. The article was quite clear on what is meant by the traditional city. * Having low density at the edges is a feature, not a downside, because some people prefer the isolation. Anyway, if we built all cities in this pattern, there would be a better density distribution. City edges would blend. In high density urban construction everybody struggles to reach the center and get back out again, every day during rush hour. Having ten smaller less dense cities without suburbs instead of one big dense one with a lot of suburbs seems like it would have fewer traffic problems and a better quality of life. Maybe it's just my personal preferences talking though. * I've been to NY, as a tower city with low car ownership it is impressive, and i was glad to visit, but also glad to leave. The best living in NY is in traditional city areas like greenwich village. High rise is not the answer to quality of life in urban planning. * The cost argument is a red herring. We don't know how to build traditional cities cheaply because we haven't done it enough recently. It would solve itself. Business finds a way when forced to. Anyway, whatever design is used, there is a sort of universal understanding what a city that is nice to live in is like, and it's one without cars. Cars simply don't belong inside a city where people actually live. I hope urban planners everywhere eventually realize this and force cars to remain at the edge, where they belong. Usually the people who want to drive their car inside the city don't even live there.
- twelvechairs 12y ago
ibl 12y ago
Apologies for off-topic. My non-HN reading brother is about to graduate an urban design programme and would love a chat about the field (especially getting started). If you have a spare moment it would be awesome if you could send your contact details to me (ib.lundgren at gmail). Cheers!

lliwta 12y ago

> * Most 'traditional cities' couldn't be built for anywhere near the same cost as a modern development. Why is this? E.g. The author points out that narrow streets should be cheaper to build and maintain. I grew up in suburbia, lived in a typical American city, and now live in a traditional city abroad. My best guesses as to why building a traditional city is more expensive are 1) construction might be more expensive because of the constrained space; 2) lots of roads are cobble stone rather than pavement; 3) maybe infrastructure (e.g. fire hydrants etc) Are there other more important reasons? I really can't figure it out.

twelvechairs 12y ago
Yes. Its not insurmountable like some of the other points (assuming you throw money at it), but its definitely there. A few examples: * Most of the examples are hand built of stone. Which is beautiful and lasts forever (by contrast most suburban homes have a ~40 year lifecycle) but costs a fortune nowadays because of the scarcity of material, labour and transportation costs. This goes for the streets as well as the buildings. * Complex topography is hated by builders. Much cheaper and easier if its dead flat. Also difficult angles. Much easier if everything is square. This is a big one. * Topography and small streets cause problems for access. Once the street is there, no chance you can get a bulldozer in. Or a cement truck of a large size. You might get a small crane but it will be very difficult. Getting your bathtub delivered or even getting your plumber in and out (when most of his tools and pipes are in the van, which is parked where?). This is a big problem for ongoing maintenance/repairs as well as initial construction (particularly if you aren't building out of stone to last forever). So if you imagine the same places built square, flat and with cheaper materials you might come close to a more typical construction cost. But its not going to be anywhere near as attractive.
- Perseids 12y ago
  > by contrast most suburban homes have a ~40 year lifecycle Living in Germany this is kind of mind-boggling for me. Does that mean each generation has to practically rebuild the houses of its parents? > Much cheaper and easier if its dead flat. Don't several story buildings pay for themselves as you can sell / rent more flats using basically the same amount of infrastructure?
  - twelvechairs 12y ago
    > Does that mean each generation has to practically rebuild the houses of its parents? Yes. In part its disposable consumerism but also its likely that something built in a period of rapid change (as suburbanism often builds houses on fields) may also be required to change itself after some time. In my area its common to see inter-war single-storey cottages rebuilt anew (knocked down completely with a new structure built from scratch), subdivided into two lots or amalgamated with others to build a block of apartments. > Don't several story buildings pay for themselves I mean dead-flat as in no steps in the ground floor within your building. Not as in 'single storey'.

graeme 12y ago

>* Modern business don't work in low desnity environments like this. You simply need to be as accessible as you can to as wide a market (of workers and other businesses you work with) as possible. Maybe once we are all working on the internet it will shift this way - but it hasn't gone far yet. My impression was that traditional cities are higher density than modern cities. They're less dense than hypertrophic cities like Manhattan, but almost everywhere is. Paris is 9 times denser than Atlanta, for example, according to Wikipedia. Can you cite any statistics showing traditional cities aren't dense? You might be right, but any place I've looked at that's traditional is also rather dense compared to the median city. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta

twelvechairs 12y ago
The examples shown aren't cities of the size of Paris. Paris would be described here as more of the 'hypertrophic city', reliant on public transit, where for the author "When your primary focus is on walking, there is very little need to invest in extensive public transit". The whole of Europe is full of small towns like the ones used as examples. There has been a big shift in living in the 20th century away from these places as modern jobs have shifted to larger cities. Your example is right. Perhaps I should have said 'less connected environments' rather than 'low density environments'. Paris is quite dense and connected by public transport. Atlanta less dense, but probably easier to drive around. The amount of people within a 1 hour commute of the centre of either will, however, be hugely higher than the examples shown.
- graeme 12y ago
  His examples were smaller than Paris, but I think Paris in many sections matches what he was talking about. His emphasis was on small streets. I picked a couple random areas in central paris on google street view and found this: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Paris,+France&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=48.859802,2.360516&spn=0.034502,0.079308&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=42.089199,81.210938&oq=paris&hnear=Paris,+%C3%8Ele-de-France,+France&t=m&z=14&layer=c&cbll=48.858935,2.357198&panoid=KFedUek_xPdwmoxKOlmqLQ&cbp=12,312.34,,0,3.28 https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Paris,+France&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=48.875074,2.338385&spn=0.034492,0.079308&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=42.089199,81.210938&oq=paris&hnear=Paris,+%C3%8Ele-de-France,+France&t=m&z=14&layer=c&cbll=48.875074,2.338385&panoid=JTi6slw3B6yserHz2yLGoQ&cbp=12,291.51,,0,11.39 Paris has transit, and large streets, but it has many, many small streets like that.

pouetpouet 12y ago

You don't necerally need high buildings to create density. You can have density with single family homes, if you have narrow streets and less parking. http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2011/061211.html http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2011/061211.html There is such a thing as sound insulation, not every appartment building is noisy. Not everything need to be super high density. There are thresholds that make a local restaurant, corner store, transit stop etc profitable. Not everybody wants to live like this sure, but many do, and these places are sadly often straight up illegal to build. Besides sprawl is incentivised through subsidized road construction, parking minimums, zoning etc.

twelvechairs 12y ago
I agree with all of what you say, particularly with the last paragraph (I strongly believe that road/parking subsidies/legality has stopped a lot of good development and encouraged bad development to the great detriment of cities). Dense single family housing is great too - I wish it was more common. Apartment living can be great for families too, where there is good public space around it - there are many people with a mental block against it though. One of the great difficulties is that people can usually either easily afford a house or will struggle to afford one. The former live in grand houses. The latter in whatever is cheapest. Whilst terrace houses may have good amenity and also be space efficient, they are the choice of neither the rich nor the poor for this reason. The thresholds thing is more difficult. Transit depends on type but more often fails for lack of pre-planning ("oh wait. we have to build a tunnel now. If only we'd reserved some land for this earlier"). Restaurants/corner-stores are great but whats shown in the linked examples is proper centres which terrace houses won't generally support (within 5 mins walk). Its worth also noting that some existing centres can support a store (where the shop owner owns it already and it just ticks over) where it wouldn't be something you'd build commercially nowadays (where developers would want a modern commercial rent, rather than just ticking over, for better or worse).

Joeri 12y ago

As someone who deliberately left behind suburbia and its mandatory car ownership to find a better quality of life in a traditional city i find it saddening to hear you argue against human-friendly urban planning. I find your arguments unconvincing. * Just because apartments are small doesn't mean you hear your neighbors, or live uncomfortably. I've lived in three different apartments the past decade and the only time i had noise issues was with a neighbor who played techno at full volume at 3 am, which would be an issue in any city design, dense or sparse. The notion that hearing three crying babies every night is just how it works is only true in hollywood movies which fictionalize poverty in the inner city. In real world apartment life you have a mixed habitation pattern, and soundproofing. * suburbia is even less dense than any sort of city. It's not the density that's the issue, it's the ability to commute. In a city where commuting can be done on foot or through public transit, like many european cities, it's simply not an issue. I walk 5 minutes and then take the tram to work, reading HN while commuting. * There's no such thing as a traditional city, yet you're arguing against it. The article was quite clear on what is meant by the traditional city. * Having low density at the edges is a feature, not a downside, because some people prefer the isolation. Anyway, if we built all cities in this pattern, there would be a better density distribution. City edges would blend. In high density urban construction everybody struggles to reach the center and get back out again, every day during rush hour. Having ten smaller less dense cities without suburbs instead of one big dense one with a lot of suburbs seems like it would have fewer traffic problems and a better quality of life. Maybe it's just my personal preferences talking though. * I've been to NY, as a tower city with low car ownership it is impressive, and i was glad to visit, but also glad to leave. The best living in NY is in traditional city areas like greenwich village. High rise is not the answer to quality of life in urban planning. * The cost argument is a red herring. We don't know how to build traditional cities cheaply because we haven't done it enough recently. It would solve itself. Business finds a way when forced to. Anyway, whatever design is used, there is a sort of universal understanding what a city that is nice to live in is like, and it's one without cars. Cars simply don't belong inside a city where people actually live. I hope urban planners everywhere eventually realize this and force cars to remain at the edge, where they belong. Usually the people who want to drive their car inside the city don't even live there.

twelvechairs 12y ago

ibl 12y ago

Apologies for off-topic. My non-HN reading brother is about to graduate an urban design programme and would love a chat about the field (especially getting started). If you have a spare moment it would be awesome if you could send your contact details to me (ib.lundgren at gmail). Cheers!